“Enormous number of complaints of corruption and enrolment process violations against Aadhaar enrolment and update centres under CSC e-Gov,” says UIDAI while asking its sibling to close Aadhaar services business

In a remarkable move that exposes the deep rot within the Aadhaar enrolment process, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the agency assigned to issue Aadhaar numbers has rejected renewal request of another government company Common Services Centres (CSC) e-Governance Services India Ltd for its Aadhaar services. UIDIAI was concerned about the “enormous number of complaints of corruption and violations in enrolment process.” It has decided, under the directions of the Prime Minister’s Office, that Aadhaar enrolment centres would now only function at government premises or bank and post offices.

Ashok Kumar, Assistant Director General of UIDAI, in a letter dated 6 February 2018, said, “In view of the enormous number of complaints of corruption and enrolment process violations against Aadhaar enrolment and update centres under CSC e-Gov it may not be possible to extend or renew the memorandum of understanding (MoU) with CSC.”

“CSC is therefore requested to process its exit from the UIDAI system as per extant procedure and guidelines and close Aadhaar enrolment and update centres working under it in phase manner without causing inconvenience to the general public,” the letter says.

Interestingly, both UIDAI and CSC e-Governance Services, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) work under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY). The CSC SPV was set up by the Ministry under the Companies Act to oversee implementation of the CSC scheme. CSC SPV provides a centralised collaborative framework for delivery of services to citizens through CSCs, besides ensuring systemic viability and sustainability of the Scheme.

And just last month, UIDAI had joined hands with CSC India to launch door step enrolment facility in New Delhi for elderly, patients and others who could not travel to Aadhaar centres. The mobile van was flagged off by Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Law and IT.

According to a 2 February 2018 newsletter from CSC, its 11,280 permanent enrolment centres (PECs) have generated 18.09 crore Aadhaar numbers with total enrolment of 26.83 crore. It has updated demographic and biometric information of 5.16 crore people, the newsletter says.

The Common Services Centres or CSC scheme is one of the mission mode projects under the Digital India Programme. CSCs are the access points for delivery of essential public utility services, social welfare schemes, healthcare, financial, education and agriculture services, apart from host of B2C services to citizens in rural and remote areas of the country. It has a pan-India network catering to regional, geographic, linguistic and cultural diversity of the country, thus enabling the Government’s mandate of a socially, financially and digitally inclusive society.

The Supreme Court on Thursday resumed hearing in the Aadhaar case. Here is the summary of arguments from Senior AdvocateShyam Divan, who is appearing for the petitioners in the Aadhaar case…

Existence of a person

Mr Divan told the five-judge Bench headed by Chief JusticeDipak Misra, that if a person exists in flesh and blood, then there should be no question of denying her anything. “This is at the core of Article 21 and the relationship between the individual and the State. In a liberal democratic culture, can the State say that I will choose to recognise you only in this manner, otherwise you cease to exist?

“There is no concept of eminent domain as far as the body is concerned. The body cannot be used as a marker for every service. The State has a legitimate interest in identifying a person, and so there could be a set of limited, narrowly tailored circumstances where you are required to give up fingerprints, such as for a passport or a driving license,” he said.

Mr Divan, who completed his arguments before lunch summed his contention in four points, personal autonomy, constitutional trust, rule of law and surveillance and privacy. He said, “What is at stake here? First, personal autonomy is at stake. Are we going to cede complete control of the body to the State? In a digital world, personal autonomy extends to protecting biometrics.”

“The second point is constitutional trust. We have created the State, and now the State trusts us as unworthy unless we cede our biometerics. The Aadhaar program treats the entire nation as presumptively criminal. The third point is the rule of law. Look at how this project has been rolled out. And the fourth point is surveillance and privacy,” he said.

“If this (Aadhaar) program is allowed to roll on unimpeded, think of the domination the State will have over the individual,” the senior counsel warned.

Deaths caused by Aadhaar exclusion

Earlier, Mr Divan read affidavits related with starvation deaths in Jharkhand due to failure of Aadhaar linking. He said, “The issues here pertain to exclusion, death, and dignity. The reports are about extreme situations. The basic point is that in a democracy, there has to be an element of choice. There cannot be just one method of identification imposed.”

Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud said one thing the Court needs to look at is the level of internet penetration in the country.

Mr Divan replied saying, “The point of sales (PoS) machine has a memory, so if the internet fails, the machine is often taken to another place where there is connectivity. However, all Aadhaar can do is stop a very limited kind of misuse (identity fraud), and there are other ways to weed out leakages.”

Observing that the affidavit seems to show that even after Aadhaar, the citizen remains dependant on the dealer of public distribution scheme (PDS), Justice Chandrachud said, while such argument may not furnish a constitutional ground, but the argument that Aadhaar itself is causing exclusion may furnish a ground under Article 14.

Mr Divan pointed out how persons who cannot authenticate are treated as “ghosts”, and as mere statistics, which cannot meet the tests under Articles 14, 19, and 21. “This is especially so because the system is coercive,” he added.

The senior counsel then highlighted how there is no way for anyone to opt out of Aadhaar. He said, “This is crucial from an informational self-determination point of view. There must be a right to opt out.”

He then read out affidavits filed by people who have asked to be opt-out from Aadhaar as they were not provided genuine information about consent at the time of enrolment. When Mr Divan read out collective affidavit from people, who wanted to opt-out from Aadhaar in Meghalaya, Justice Chandrachud asked about the position of Aadhaar in North-East. Mr Divan said, there are places where the Aadhaar roll out is low and they have been exempted.

Security Audit highlights risks of hacking

Dr Rakesh Mohan Goel, a computer industry expert, and an occasional writer for Moneylife who has audited enrolment centres of Aadhaar had filed an affidavit in the Court. Reading out this affidavit, Mr Divan said, he (Dr Goel) found out that those people at enrolment centres were retaining and storing biometric data and the UIDAI had no way of knowing.

He said, “Dr Goel’s affidavit says that the biometrics of Indians are available to private entities, can be and are being stored in logs. The affidavit says that because of the architecture of Aadhaar, UIDAI has very little control over this. Dr Goel has annexed a paper to the affidavit, based on 25 audits, that talks about six ways of hacking. The affidavit says that there is no way of knowing, after an audit, whether the storage is continuing or has stopped.”

“When you part with something as precious as biometrics, there has to be a fiduciary relationship between you and the person taking it. How can you trust a system like this?” the senior counsel contended.

Mr Divan, replying to a query from Justice Chandrachud, said while the UIDAI has technical specification about the authentication machines, the purchase is private.

Citing an example of credit card frauds, Justice Chandrachud wanted to know if this could be possible with Aadhaar. Mr Divan said, it is possible to hack into these systems, which are not as secure than the CIDR.

He then read out Dr Goel’s academic article that explains six ways of hacking.

The senior counsel then argued on bodily integrity and the right to control one’s information about oneself. He said, “Basic point is that this is a reason why people do not want to be on Aadhaar, and why they should not be mandated to get into the system. While some of these leaks can be plugged, but the basic design is faulty.”

He cited the recent incident from Surat where the police arrested two owners of fair price shops for using a software that contained ration card numbers, Aadhaar card numbers and biometric thumb impressions of PDS beneficiaries for creating fake records of food grain sale. The software, with bulk data of beneficiaries, was available for Rs15,000.

Mr Divan then took the Court through mechanism of producing artificial fingerprints. “The operator’s fingerprints are cloned. When UIDAI found this out, they added iris authentication. However, the hackers then found a way to bypass that as well. First point is that cloning of fingerprints is easy and it is possible, and is being done. What is the integrity of such system, and why should anyone trust this? This is a question of my right to protect my body and my identity. If the system is so insecure, why am I being mandated to authenticate through fingerprints for every transaction?” he contended.

The senior counsel pointed to a reply received under Right to Information (RTI) in 2017 that says that 6.23 crore biometric enrolments have been rejected because of duplicates. This is larger than the population of Gujarat. He says, “More the database expands, given that this is a probabilistic system, the more times you will have a match. This is indicative of exclusion, and that the system is saturated, leading to unjustified rejections.”

Mr Divan then read out an affidavit filed by Dr Reetika Khera, who is an economist at IIT Delhi, and works on the NREGA. The affidavit shows biometric authentication failure at a tribal school, where those whose fingerprints were not recognised by Aadhaar, were not marked present. “These (students) are not ghosts in the system. They are flesh and blood girls attending the school, and Aadhaar is not recognising them. Secondly, you are creating records for an entire lifetime, starting from school. Is this not a surveillance society? Thirdly, there is no statutory sanction,” he said.

Justice AK Sikri that in fact later, the teachers may be hauled up for inflating numbers.

Mr Divan said, personhood under the Indian Constitution flows from being alive, and not from registering oneself in a central database. “This degrades free individuals”.

Mr Divan and his office has been with the Aadhaar challenge since its origins in 2012, and have appeared in every hearing for the last six years.

Based on live tweets of @gautambhatia88, who is representing one of the petitioners and @prasanna_s.

Lucknow: A very disturbing video from Uttar Pradesh’s Allahabad, came to the limelight where a 26-year-old law student is seen being thrashed by a group of men who take turns to hit him with a hockey stick, broken pipe and bricks outside a restaurant.

The man slipped into a coma and died at a hospital this morning. The main accused has been identified, but no arrests have been made so far.

The video, shot on a mobile phone reportedly by a passerby, shows the victim, Dilip Saroj, lying unconscious on the steps of the restaurant where the incident took place last night.

Based on a video of the incident, the police have identified the main accused as Vijay Shankar, a travelling ticket examiner with the Railways.

A 26-year-old law student died in Uttar Pradesh’s Allahabad on Sunday after he was attacked by a group of men with hockey sticks, broken pipes and bricks near a restaurant in the city, NDTV reported.

Based on a video of the incident, which went viral on social media, the police have identified the main accused as Vijay Shankar, a travelling ticket examiner with the Railways. However, the police have not yet arrested anyone. “We can see the men in the CCTV footage, but except for the main accused, Vijay Shankar Singh, we have not been able to identify the rest,” Sukriti Madhav, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Allahabad, said. “We have formed special teams to arrest the accused.”

The police identified the victim as Dilip Saroj, a law student at Allahabad Degree College. Based on a complaint by Saroj’s brother, the police have registered a First Information Report. Saroj and his friends had gone out to dinner at the restaurant, the police said. They reportedly got into an argument with the attackers, which soon turned violent.

“After dinner, we were sitting on the stairs that lead to the restaurant. Three people came, pushed us, abused and went to the restaurant on the first floor,” Saroj’s friend Prakash Singh was quoted as saying. “We followed them to the restaurant to confront them which is when they started beating us. I was hit with chairs too, but I managed to escape.

As the men, seemingly drunk, beat him, a passerby briefly stopped, while others seemed to not notice anything. The men, who captured the crime, are heard saying in the video, “The police will turn up only after he is dead”. However, neither makes a call to the police.

The police have registered a FIR based on a complaint filed by Dilip’s brother.

According to the police, Dilip, who lived in a rented house in Allahabad, had gone out for dinner with two friends. They reportedly had an argument with the attackers which soon turned violent. Dilip’s friends managed to escape.

“We can see the men in the CCTV footage, but except for the main accused, Vijay Shankar Singh, who is employed with the Indian Railways, we have not been able to identify the rest. We have formed special teams to arrest the accused,” said Sukriti Madhav, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Allahabad.

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After examining medical documents pertaining to the death of the judge Brijgopal Harkishan Loya, one of India’s foremost forensic experts, Dr RK Sharma—the former head of the Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Department at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, and the president of the Indian Association of Medico-Legal Experts for 22 years—has dismissed the official claim that Loya died of a heart attack. According to Sharma, the documents show signs of possible trauma to the brain, and even possible poisoning.

Sharma spoke to The Caravan after studying Loya’s post-mortem report and related histopathology report, a report that accompanied samples of Loya’s viscera that were sent for chemical analysis, and the results of the chemical analysis. Some of these documents have been procured through Right to Information applications, and others have been submitted to the Supreme Court by the government of Maharashtra in support of a report by Maharashtra’s State Intelligence Department that concludes there is no cause for suspicion regarding Loya’s death. Sharma’s expert opinion contradicts this conclusion.

“There is no evidence of myocardial infarction in the histopathology report,” Sharma said. “The findings in this report have no suggestion of a heart-attack. They show changes, but not a heart attack.”

Sharma observed, “The post-mortem report also says that calcification is observed in the vessels. Where there is calcification, there is no heart attack. Once the vessels have calcified they will never block the flow of blood.”

Loya is reported to have complained of feeling unwell at about 4 am on the night of his death, and was declared dead at 6.15 am. “So that means two hours,” Sharma said. “If one is alive for more than 30 minutes after the symptoms [of a heart attack] show, the condition of the heart will have clear changes. No clear changes can be seen here.”

The post-mortem report states that the probable cause of death was “coronary artery insufficiency.” Sharma said that “there are changes observed in heart in these documents, but none of them are conclusive enough to show ‘Coronary Artery Insufficiency.’ Every patient who goes for a bypass surgery will have these symptoms.”

“More importantly, dura is congested according to the post-mortem report,” Sharma added. “Dura mater is the outermost layer that surrounds our brain. It is damaged in cases of trauma, which indicates some kind of an assault on the brain. A physical assault.”

Dr Anuradha Biyani, Loya’s sister and a medical doctor in the service of the Maharashtra government, told The Caravan earlier that, when she saw her brother’s body for the first time after his death, “there were bloodstains on the neck at the back of the shirt.” Biyani maintains a diary, and in an entry from the time of Loya’s death she recorded that “there was blood on his collar.” Sarita Mandhane, another of Loya’s sisters, had also mentioned “blood on the neck” when she spoke to The Caravan, and that “these was blood and an injury on his head … on the back side.” Harkishan Loya, the judge’s father, told The Caravan that he remembered “bloodstains on the clothes.”

Among the state of Maharashtra’s submission to the Supreme Court is a bill in Loya’s name from Nagpur’s Meditrina hospital, where the judge was declared dead. While Meditrina officials maintain that Loya was brought in with heart problems, this document inexplicably lists “neurosurgery” as a billed item.

The post-mortem report does not record precisely how much congestion of dura was observed. Sharma said he found it strange that “the reason why dura is congested is not written.”

“There is a possibility of poisoning,” Sharma continued, looking at the post-mortem report. “Every single organ is congested.” The organs recorded as “congested” in the report include the liver, pancreas, spleen, kidneys, oesophagus and lungs, among others.

The findings of the chemical analysis on Loya’s viscera samples, submitted 50 days after the judge’s death, did not identify any poison. The analysis was performed at the Regional Forensic Science Laboratory in Nagpur. It is recorded as having started on 5 January 2015—36 days after Loya’s death, on the night intervening between 30 November and 1 December 2014—and finished 14 days later, on 19 January 2015. “Why did it take so long for the analysis,” Sharma asked. “It generally takes a day or two [to complete the analysis].”

The chain of custody of Loya’s viscera sample appears to have been broken in the aftermath of the post-mortem. According to documents submitted to the Supreme Court by the state of Maharashtra, a zero-FIR regarding Loya’s death was first registered at Nagpur’s Sitabuldi police station. The Sitabuldi station arranged for the post-mortem, conducted at the Government Medical College in Nagpur from 10.55 am to 11.50 am on 1 December. The samples for chemical analysis are collected at the same time. For reasons that have not yet been made clear, the FIR was then transferred to Nagpur’s Sadar police station, where records show that it was registered at 4pm. It was the Sadar station that dispatched Loya’s tissue samples for analysis with the necessary letter. It is not clear where, and with whom, Loya’s tissue samples were in the hours between the post-mortem and the registration of the FIR at the Sadar station, or under whose supervision they were handed over to the Sadar station. Nor has it been made clear why the Sitabuldi station did not send the samples to the forensic laboratory right after the post-mortem was done.

In addition, there is no consensus on the condition of Loya’s body and the probable cause of Loya’s death as recorded in the post-mortem report and the report that accompanied Loya’s viscera samples when these were sent for analysis—despite the fact that the latter is meant to be based entirely on the former. In a field titled “rigor mortis,” meant to record how stiff a body is at the time of inspection, the post-mortem report states, “slightly present in upper limbs [and] not appeared in lower limbs.” The viscera report, under the same field, says that rigor mortis is “well marked.” Rigor mortis could not have been “slightly present” and “well marked” at the same time. In a field titled “opinion as to the probable cause of death,” the post-mortem report states, “Coronary artery insufficiency.” Under the same field, the viscera report and notes, “A case of sudden death.” In a field titled “Story of case,” the viscera report states, “A case of natural death,” with the words “natural death” underlined—and yet a report of accidental death had earlier been registered at the Sitabuldi police station before it sent Loya’s body for a post-mortem.

Both the post-mortem report and the viscera report were prepared at the Government Medical College in Nagpur. The form used for the viscera report, obtained via a Right to Information application, clearly states that the information in it must be based on the post-mortem, and must be prepared immediately after the post-mortem by the same doctor who conducted the procedure. The form in Loya’s case, filled in by the forensic department of the Government Medical College, is titled “Form in which Report of Post-mortem Examination to be used when forwarding Viscera to the Chemical Analyser.” A doctor who works in the forensic department at AIIMS in Delhi confirmed that the standard procedure is to “copy the information in the post-mortem to the form” that accompanies viscera sent to a chemical analyser. Sharma said the same thing.

In Loya’s case, both the post-mortem and the viscera reports are signed by Dr NK Tumaram, a lecturer at the Government Medical College—and yet the same doctor, in reports meant to be prepared almost simultaneously, has furnished clearly contradictory information, even on something as important as the probable cause of death. When The Caravan contacted Tumaram, he said he could not speak about the case since it is being heard in court.

Loya was 48 years old at the time of his death, did not smoke or drink, and had no personal or familial history of heart ailments. “Our parents are 85 and 80 years old, and are healthy with no cardiac history,” Anuradha Biyani earlier told The Caravan. Loya, she added, “was always a teetotaller, played table tennis for two hours a day for years, had no diabetes or blood pressure.”

Dr RK Sharma has written five books on forensic and medico-legal issues, and has lectured and trained judges and public prosecutors on multiple occasions. He has been a consultant for the Central Bureau of Investigation, been invited to international seminars by investigative agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States, and has organised numerous national and international seminars in forensic medicine and toxicology.

“Isme investigation hona chahiye” (There should be an investigation in this), Sharma said while reading the documents. He later reiterated, “The situation presented in these documents necessitates an investigation.”

Sheet of post-mortem report (left) and sheet of viscera report (right) showing contradictory opinions on probable cause of death.Sheets of post-mortem report showing congestion of multiple organs, including the liver, pancreas, spleen, kidneys, oesophagus and lungs, among others.Report of chemical analysis on tissue samples (left) showing date of start and end of analysis. Sheet of post-mortem report (centre) and sheet of viscera report (right) showing observations on rigor mortis.

You may think that hackers are only interested in getting into your phones, computers, and bank accounts, but it’s up to researchers around the world to preempt their actions and keep us all safe. And one of the directions they feel hackers will soon go, is towards sex toys.

In the recent past, makers of these sex toys have begun using other technologies in an attempt to improve their products. They’ve got everything from Bluetooth, to Wi-Fi, to cameras, all to help keep that long-distance relationship alive. And now, those very upgrades may be their undoing.

Italian cybersecurity researcher Giovanni Mellini just announced that not only was he able to hack into a Bluetooth-enabled butt plug this last week, but he was able to do it extremely easily.

The device in question, Hush by Lovesense, is marketed as the “world’s first teledildonic butt plug”. The basic idea is that you can pair it with a smart device, and then control it from anywhere. A naughty idea for couples looking to spice things up. Not so much however, when a hacker can take control of it.

Why is this such a scary development?

According to Mellini’s blog post, he was able to hack the butt plug using a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) scanner freely available on Github. Bluetooth isn’t known to be the most secure way to transfer data, and its low energy version is even more so. However, the technology has found a wide array of uses in the IoT sector because of its low power requirement.

Thanks to this, it’s relatively easy to execute a man-in-the-middle attack, where a hacker can trick the sex toy into thinking it’s connected to the paired device and snatch up data sent between the two. In this way, Mellini was able to remotely pair with the butt plug without any sort of password, pin or authentication. Worrying enough when your phone is involved, but probably worse when the device in question being hacked is in your rear.

Of course, while you may think this is a limited case, it has worse implications for the future, especially when you consider those sex toys with embedded cameras we talked about earlier. Suddenly, what you expected to be a way to be intimate with a partner across a vast distance is instead fuel for a hacker blackmailing you. And that’s just the tip of the teledildonic iceberg.

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Snapshot

If governments are serious about delivering welfare services to people, then it is time we gave up on Aadhaar and learnt from the number of other positive experiences that we have had, like the PDS in Tamil Nadu or Chhattisgarh, where leakages were reduced to a negligible level even before Aadhaar existed.

Aadhaar has shown how it can exclude, while there is no evidence that proves that it has actually improved the efficiency of delivering welfare services to people.

The Tribune report on how easy it is to acquire Aadhaar-related data has been the final nail in the data privacy coffin. While the validity of the unique identity project has finally come into question because of data security issues, what many seem to continue believing is that Aadhaar is necessary for welfare. This group argues that one cannot talk about destroying Aadhaar, but what is required is to put in place safeguards for data protection. However, it needs to be understood that Aadhaar is not helping welfare in any way; rather, it has become a tool for excluding genuine beneficiaries. And it is usually the poorest and the most vulnerable who are left out.

In several cases, one has seen the denial of entitlements such as pension or ration due to Aadhaar-related reasons.

A few months ago, young Santoshi in Jharkhand died hungry. One of the immediate causes for this desperate situation was that her family’s ration card was cancelled, and they did not get any rations for five months as they were unable to get an Aadhaar seeding done. This incident should have shaken the nation’s conscience and made everyone pause and reflect on whether the havoc that Aadhaar is causing to the delivery of welfare schemes is really worth it.

All that it did managed to do was make headlines for a few days with claims and counter-claims on whether Santoshi was really starving, or if she died of some other cause. Her mother was accused of bringing shame to the nation for insisting that her daughter had died of hunger; the activists who exposed the situation were alleged to have vested interests; the minister denied that Aadhaar was mandatory in the first place, and there is not much change on the ground.

Since then, four more such deaths have been reported from Jharkhand, three from Karnataka and one from Uttar Pradesh. In all these cases, amongst the various failures of the state, one has seen the denial of entitlements such as pensions or rations due to Aadhaar-related reasons. The loss of even one life should have been reason enough to abort the project, especially when there are so many well-reasoned arguments for why Aadhaar is not the solution to ensuring better delivery of welfare schemes.

Right from the beginning of the Aadhaar project in 2009, we have been told that the unique identity would assist in identifying the poor and ensuring that the benefits from state welfare programmes reach them without any leakages. From inception itself, documents of the Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) betrayed ignorance of what the actual problems in schemes such as the public distribution system (PDS) are and how limited the role of Aadhaar in solving them can be. The only way in which Aadhaar can claim to help in reducing leakages is by weeding out “ghost” or duplicate beneficiaries by the use of biometric identification. But, till date, there has been no estimate by the UIDAI or the government on how many such beneficiaries exist in the first place. Such weeding out exercises have now been conducted, and the result has been the exclusions of families such as Santoshi’s or a large number of old people in Rajasthan, who were declared to be dead, or “ghosts”, and were later found to be very much alive and deserving of pensions. The actual “ghosts” are very few!

There are a number of ways in which people are getting excluded from welfare schemes because of Aadhaar.

First, there is still a small (but significant) number of people who do not have an Aadhaar number. According to the UIDAI website, Aadhaar saturation as on 31 December 2017 is 88.5 per cent. But this number is doubtful, since the saturation data is based on total Aadhaar generated divided by the total population of the country. However, the total number of Aadhaar generated also includes persons who have died, since UIDAI has no system of deleting Aadhaar. It also includes foreigners, although the exact numbers are not known. That’s why in some states, the Aadhaar saturation is in excess of 100 per cent. It is likely that the actual saturation is less than reported.

But even if one accepts the 88.5 per cent figure, in absolute terms, 11.5 per cent population without Aadhaar translates into a large number of people. There have been notifications last year, making Aadhaar mandatory for children’s schemes, while there is a large number of children who have not yet been enrolled. In response to a recent parliament question, it was stated that only 43.4 per cent of children below the age of five years have been assigned Aadhaar numbers as on 15 December 2017. Similarly, from data in response to another parliament question, it is seen that over 23 per cent of children (six to 14 years of age) availing of the mid-day meal scheme do not have an Aadhaar number.

Second, there is a category of people whose Aadhaar numbers have been suspended. As on August 2017, about 81 lakh Aadhaar numbers had been deactivated/suspended. The UIDAI has authority to suspend an Aadhaar number at any time, and the only information that will be given to the person is through SMS. A few months ago, a group of us associated with the Rethink Aadhaar movement met an old man in Delhi outside an Aadhaar enrolment centre, whose Aadhaar number had been suspended for reasons unknown to him. This had resulted in him losing access to the monthly social security pension that he was receiving from the state government — his only source of income. He had visited the enrolment centre three times, and each time was sent away to get a different documentary proof related to his address, age and so on.

Third, there are people who have Aadhaar, but with wrong details entered. For instance, on a recent field visit to Satna district in Madhya Pradesh, a few Right To Food Campaign activists met two senior citizens, clearly over 65 years of age, in one village, whose age had been entered as 40 and 45 in their Aadhaar cards. As a result, they were being denied pension.

Fourth, there are people who have an Aadhaar number, but these have not been “seeded” to the beneficiary lists of one or more of the schemes that they are entitled to. This could be because they did not have an Aadhaar when the seeding was being done, their biometrics did not get recorded accurately, there were data entry issues or some other problem. Santoshi’s was one such case.

Fifth, there are people who have an Aadhaar, their number is seeded but they are still not getting their entitlement, because of failures that happen when they try the Aadhaar-based biometric authentication (ABBA) each month. This could be because of network errors or fingerprints not matching. There is no accurate estimate on biometric-matching failures. The government has steadfastly refused to provide information on the percentage of biometric failures, but data from Andhra Pradesh for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and the public distribution system (PDS) suggests that it could be in the 15-30 per cent range. Anecdotally, however, one knows that old people and manual workers seem to be facing this problem the most. The Delhi Rozi Roti Adhikar Abhiyan has filed over 1,000 affidavits in the Delhi High Court about people who are being denied rations because of Aadhaar-related issues.

While there are so many ways in which people can be denied their entitlements because Aadhaar is mandatory, the government does not maintain any data on each of these. Therefore, there is no account of how many attempted biometric authentications are successful, the number of times there have been network problems, and so on. Yet, there are regular estimates of “savings” due to Aadhaar that various sources in the government bring out. Most of these estimates have not withstood careful scrutiny, and it seems that the assumption is that any failure to get an entitlement is a result of the beneficiary being a fraud or, even worse, a “ghost”.

In a December 2017 article in the Economic and Political Weekly, Reetika Khera shows how the claims of deletions of PDS cards have not been because of duplicates unearthed by Aadhaar; rather these were deletions of “ineligible” cards. “…All the deletions are due to ineligibility. Digitisation or Aadhaar-integration cannot eliminate eligibility fraud. Eligibility is determined by the criteria notified by states (for instance, living in a mud house, or caste status, etc). Aadhaar does not provide this information.”

It has similarly been proven that all the estimates of “savings” by the government are exaggerations with no clear indication of how these can be assumed to be because of Aadhaar. The Twitter handle @databaazi has a compilation of claims and reality on Aadhaar savings.

It is now well established that leakages in PDS happen in a number of ways that Aadhaar does not have the ability to address. Quantity fraud, where the beneficiaries are given less grain than they are entitled to, is rampant and continues despite Aadhaar authentication. Further, along with exclusion and denial, Aadhaar is also resulting in higher transaction costs pointing to inefficiency rather than efficiency. A survey in rural Jharkhand by Jean Dreze, Khera and others, found that “when ABBA works for entitled households, it comes with higher transaction costs and little protection against quantity fraud. Those who are excluded by ABBA tend to be the most vulnerable: the elderly who cannot walk, widows with young children, etc”.

There are a number of other ways of reducing corruption, and these have been well documented.

Using technology in an empowering manner (online complaint mechanisms, transparency portals, real-time monitoring), increasing local accountability (vigilance committees, social audits, public hearings), putting in place effective and decentralised grievance redressal systems have all been found to be effective. Aadhaar, on the other hand, is not designed to address the kind of leakages found in welfare schemes such as PDS, social security pensions etc.

Aadhaar has shown how it can exclude, while there is no evidence of its having improved efficiency. If governments are serious about delivering welfare services to people, then it is time we gave up on Aadhaar and learnt from the number of other positive experiences that we have had, like the PDS in Tamil Nadu or Chhattisgarh, where leakages were reduced to a negligible level even before Aadhaar existed

A friend of ours Neelabh mishra , is now very critically ill with non alcoholicliver failure. He is in urgent need for a liver transplant immediately as a life saving measure.

Neelabh is a very senior and widely respected journalist from Delhi who has also been involved with the human rights and civil liberties movement in India.

Doctors in AIIMS have advised Liver Transplant and he is presently in Apollo Hospital,Chennai. Doctors feel an early transplant is ideal since waiting for a cadaver liver is unpredictable and may take a long time.

His blood group is “A” negative.

Any healthy adult with ‘A’ or ‘O’ (positive or negative doesn’t matter) can donate a part of liver to save him.

Ideally donors should be between 20 and 50 years. They should be Non-diabetic, non alcoholic and otherwise not having major illnesses. Organs can only be donated after an extensive medical test and after ensuring absolute safety for the donor. Special permission will have to be obtained from the government but considering the urgency, we can approach the authorities for permission.

An Explanatory Note to those who might be willing to donate a part of their liver.

Only 1/8 th portion of the liver from living persons is taken for transplantation. The liver in living persons has remarkable regenerative capacities and in the case of live liver donors, the liver, after a small portion is taken out, will regenerate fully. Only those willing to donate for non-commercial and altruistic purposes will bee accepted.

At Mahapanchayats, Jat and Muslim leaders are erasing the past and giving peace a chance.

Similar Mahapanchayats for Jats and Muslims will be held in Lishar, Fugana, Lakh, Mohammadpur Raisingh and Kawal villages. (Uday Singh Rana/News18.com)

Muzaffarnagar: After the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections last year, Vipin Singh Balyan from Kutba village in western UP’s Muzaffarnagar took a radical decision. Fifty-three Jat youths from his village were implicated in nine separate cases of violence, including murder, in 2013, when communal riots ripped through Muzaffarnagar. He would go to the Muslim victims and beg forgiveness on behalf of Jats.

On the morning of September 8, 2013, communal violence had spread to Kutba and a group of local youths had killed eight Muslims. Scared for their lives, Muslims fled the village and settled in nearby Bara Basti, a cluster of 12 Muslim-dominated villages.

“I decided to go to the house of one Akhtar Hassan, who had great standing among Kutba’s Muslims. I told him I was there to ask for forgiveness. The first time I went there, the Muslims gathered around and started abusing me for what Jats had done to their families. I neither reacted nor tried to defend myself. I left my Jat ego at the door and listened to everything they had to say,” says Balyan.

The first meeting with Akhtar was a failure. Balyan went again, only to be turned down once more. When the third visit, too, yielded no possibility of a “settlement”, Balyan says he was beginning to lose hope. But then, something unexpected happened.

“After the third meeting, I went home dejected. That very evening, Akhtar called me. He said that a Muslim girl from Kutba was being bothered by local Muslim lads from Bara Basti. He sought help from Jats to put pressure on the police to arrest those miscreants. As their former landlords, Jats thought it was their duty to help a daughter of Kutba, even if she was Muslim. We surrounded the police station and the cops were forced to arrest the accused.”

That incident helped break the ice and gave Balyan and company the chance to move forward with their “peace process”. But it was important to first win back the Muslims’ trust. The culprits of Kutba were Jats, but the Jats of Kakra village had lost their sons at the hands of Muslim rioters from nearby Pur Balyan village. So the Jats of Kutba took a decision. They would first get cases against Muslims withdrawn.

Chaudhary Shakir Ali is the former pradhan of Pur Balyan village. On September 7, 2013, a group of Jats were passing through the mosque in Pur Balyan when they were killed by a Muslim mob.

Shakir Ali, a local landlord, was accused of instigating the violence. “We have centuries-old relations with Jats. But since the riots, I had stopped getting wedding invitations from Hindu households. Sometime during Ramzan last year, during the sehri, Jats from Kutba came to my house and had breakfast with us. Vipin bhai told us that he wanted a settlement of all riot-related cases. That came as a godsend for us. We were willing to fold our hands in front of the Jats of Kakra and beg for forgiveness. And if that helped the Jat boys from Kutba, it would be even better.”

So it was decided. Fifty-three Jat boys from Kutba and 27 Muslims from Pur Balyan were accused of rioting. The two communities would come together to forgive all of them for their “crimes of passion”. After months of negotiations with the victims — the Kutba Muslims who now lived in Bara Basti and the Jats of Kakra — it was decided that a ‘Mahapanchayat’ would be held. Two ‘Mahapanchayats’ were held. But the Muslims had one condition.

“They told us that if there was even a hint of involvement of the BJP, which they blame for the riots, any chance of a settlement would be off the table,” says Vipin, adding, “We agreed to that demand and did not invite any BJP leaders to the Mahapanchayat.”

It complicated matters slightly since Kutba’s twin village Kutbi is the home of BJP MP and former Union minister Sanjeev Balyan. But the Jats did not waver from their promise. The BJP was cut out from the peace settlement.

Chaudhary Shakir Ali, former pradhan of Pur Balyan village

The first two Mahapanchayats, one held at Mulayam Singh Yadav’s residence in Delhi and the other one in Muzaffarnagar city, were positive in their tone and tenor, but a settlement had not been reached. The victims wanted to forgive and move on, but the scars of the Muzaffarnagar riots were still fresh. It was the third Panchayat in Bara Basti on February 4, 2018, where they made serious headway.

Sohanvir Balyan, a Jat from Kakra, says, “Our Jat sons had been killed and yet, we went to the Mahapanchayat in Bara Basti. Some Right-wing groups refer to Bara Basti as ‘Mini-Pakistan’ owing to its Muslim majority. But we did something radical there.”

At the Mahapanchayat, Sohanvir took the stage and asked all Jats to chant ‘Allah-O-Akbar!’ (Allah is great). He then turned to Muslims and asked them to chant ‘Har Har Mahadev!’ (Hail Lord Shiva). To Vipin Balyan’s surprise, everyone complied.

“Jats and Muslims have been friends for centuries but I have never seen something like this. I have never seen hardy Jats shout Allah-O-Akbar or seen skull cap-donning Muslims shout ‘Har Har Mahadev’,” he says.

“All of us chimed in. Har Har Mahadev is not an Islamic chant, but we still chimed in,” says Shakir Ali.

The chants set the ball rolling. Chainpal Singh, the son of a local Chaudhary, took the stage with Shakir Ali and the two begged for forgiveness on behalf of their communities. “I folded my palms and said ‘Galati te humari thi, humein maaf kar dijiye (It was our fault, please forgive us),” says Chainpal.

But what clinched the ‘peace deal’ were the pleas of village elders.

Vipin Singh Balyan (on mic) addressing a panchayat

Raghubir Singh, a 90-year-old Jat from Kutba, faced Akhtar Hassan and told him that Jats held no ill-will against Muslims. “The violence was not planned or done out of some enmity. A video was being circulated on mobile phones that showed the head of a Jat being smashed by a rock. It later turned out that the video was from a Taliban camp in Afghanistan. We were fooled and we fell for it. So I begged Akhtar to forgive Jats.”

Shakir Ali had a similar story to tell. “Some BJP leaders had held a Mahapanchayat on September 7 and rumours spread that a Muslim journalist was brutally murdered after it. Some local boys got angry and things got out of hand.”

After the chants and the passionate pleas for forgiveness, Akhtar Hassan, who lost many friends in Kutba, “forgave” the Jats of his village. “I took the families of the victims, all of whom were my friends, into confidence and together, we forgave the Jats of our village. The cases are still going on in the courts but we don’t want to exact any revenge,” he tells News18.

Shakir Ali says, pointing to 40-year-old Assaduddin, “Look at him! He is handicapped and the police said he had murdered someone! Several people, from both sides, were falsely implicated in the riots. Now, they can move on with their lives.”

While these Mahapanchayats were helping Jats and Muslims move towards a resolution, it ruffled feathers within the BJP. Former Union minister and Muzaffarnagar MP Sanjeev Balyan met UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday in Lucknow, along with BJP MLA Sangeet Som and farmer leader Naresh Tikait. He demanded that several cases of arson should be quashed. The leaders claimed that out of 502 cases, around 400 cases were of arson and were mostly bogus just to get the compensation.

As per reports, CM Yogi has assured the leaders of all possible help in this regard after proper consultation. A few days ago, the Yogi government had announced its decision to withdraw 20,000 cases, which were “politically motivated”.

According to local Jats, Sanjeev Balyan’s decision to take Naresh Tikait with him to Lucknow has political significance. As the ‘Chaudhary’ of the Balyan Khap, which dictates social life in 84 Jat villages of Muzaffarnagar, Tikait is essentially Jat royalty. Moreover, he is the son of iconic farmer leader Mahinder Singh Tikait.

A Jat activist from Muzaffarnagar says, “When we met Tikait sahib, we told him that he had been used by Sanjeev Balyan for political ends. When he (Sanjeev Balyan) goes to the CM with the leader of the Balyan Khap, it appears as though all Jats are with him. His position in the BJP gets strengthened.”

Unperturbed by the BJP’s attempts to champion riot-accused Jats, Vipin Balyan says his Mahapanchayats will continue. “We have already resolved the conflicts in Kutba, Kakra and Pur Balyan. Now we will hold similar Mahapanchayats for the Jats and Muslims of Lishar, Fugana, Lakh, Mohammadpur Raisingh and Kawal villages. Jats and Muslims are, once again, united. The days of Baba Tikait (Mahinder Singh Tikait) are back.”

While Muslims who fled their village do not plan to return to live here, signs of communal healing are already visible. “One boy was an ironsmith in our village. A few months ago, he came back to set up his shop, even though he continues to live 5 km away in Bara Basti. We welcomed him with open arms and he was followed by Muslim farm labourers, who are the backbone of Jat landlords. The wounds are healing,” says Balyan.

Shakir Ali agrees. “Recently, I held my son’s Walima (wedding reception) in the village. I had more Hindu guests than Muslims,” he says proudly.

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After PM Modi, in a TV interview, said that selling pakodas counts as employment, the NSUI had, on February 5, decided to sell pakodas to protest against the statement as well as compulsory attendance that has been introduced in JNU recently. by Aranya Shankar | New Delhi

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has slapped a fine of Rs 20,000 each on at least four student activists of the NSUI for alleged indiscipline (File Photo)

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has slapped a fine of Rs 20,000 each on at least four student activists of the NSUI for alleged indiscipline, apart from withdrawing hostel facilities of one student and punishing the others with a hostel transfer. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a TV interview, said that selling pakodas counts as employment, the NSUI had, on February 5, decided to sell pakodas to protest against the statement as well as compulsory attendance that has been introduced in JNU recently. The campus has seen a string of protests over the issue of attendance — on Saturday, a human chain was formed on campus.

“There is prima facie evidence that you were involved in blocking the road near Sabarmati bus stand and at T-point near Administrative Block since February 5, due to which inconvenience was caused to students, teachers, staff, visitors and schoolchildren. Vehicles carrying essential commodities to hostels, etc; were affected. Further, you were involved in forceful cooking of food at the protest site in spite of repeated requests from CSO (chief security officer) not to do this act. Moreover, you also forcefully laid an electric cable for screening of a movie at protest site at night. The above are acts of indiscipline and unbecoming of a student,” read an order by the Chief Proctor dated February 9.

It said that “despite the letter from the Chief Proctor’s office dated February 8, which stated ‘clear the blockade immediately failing which strict disciplinary action may be initiated against you’, you continue to occupy the location of your protest”.

“The Vice-Chancellor, in exercise of the powers vested in him… has ordered to impose on you a fine of Rs 20,000 and transfer to another hostel from the present hostel accommodation with immediate effect,” read notices issued to three students — Alimuddin, Mukesh Kumar and Manish Meena. Another, issued to Vikas Yadav, mentions the fine as well as “withdrawal of hostel facility with immediate effect for a period of two semesters”.

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For a man who was the face of pro-bono legal defense of terror accused in the country, his family’s wait for justice has been excruciatingly slow. Shahid Azmi was shot dead on February 11, 2010 and eight years, and at least 12 court transfers later, the trial of the four men accused of murdering him is yet to begin.

While two of the accused – Vinod Vichare and Pintu Dhagle – have been granted bail, two others – Devendra Jagtap and Hasmukh Solanki – continue to be behind bars. Shahid’s youngest brother Khalid, who has followed in his brother’s footsteps to become a lawyer, spoke to Mirror about the delay in starting the trial. “The case has been transferred from one court to another at least 12 times in these years. That coupled with the applications filed by the accused added to the delay.”

“After the murder, our local Bar Association decided not to represent any of the accused, as the incident was a shock to us all,” said advocate Ajay Tripathi, one of Shahid’s closest friends, who also got Sanad (licence to practice) on the same day as Shahid. “While this sent a message out, the court was forced to adjourn the case several times, as the accused said they were yet to hire lawyers,” he added. Tripathi fears that it will be the accused who will ultimately benefit from this delay.

Santosh Shetty, a former gangster, was accused of having been given the contract to murder Shahid. However, with little evidence against him, he was discharged in 2014. On a petition filed by the accused, the trial has now been expedited. Even then, it has been over a year since the trial was slated to begin, but there has been no development since. On February 8, 2018, the first witness was supposed to depose, however the court was on leave.

Fighting for accused

Azmi, whose life inspired the critically-acclaimed film Shahid, represented the July 2006 train blasts accused in court. He convinced a trust Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind to bear the legal expenses to approach the Supreme Court to challenge the validity of a section of the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA) in their case.

His association with the trust continued through the 26/11 trial, where he represented Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, who had been accused of preparing maps used by the terrorists. Shahid’s arguments led to their acquittal in 2010, which was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court.

Shahid continued to do his bit for the men he believed were falsely implicated by the investigating agencies, until his last breath on February 11, 2010, when he was shot dead in his office by men who had approached him under the guise of seeking legal advice.

Family still hopeful

“It’s been eight years but there isn’t a day that goes by when we don’t remember him,” says his brother, adding, “We are grateful we aren’t alone while doing this. Several programs are held throughout the country in his memory. There are at least three this year as well.”

His mother Rehana, 62, has not given up hope yet. “The trial may have been delayed but I believe in Allah, justice will be done.” She has one question for her son’s killers, “Can you ever sleep at night?”

Saying that every home deserves a son like Shahid, she said, “Even on the day he was murdered, Shahid rushed to his office because he got a call for help. The people asking for that help then murdered him. Those men didn’t just kill my son, they killed humanity.”

————————————————————————————————–‘Shahid had been to hell and back’

Excerpts from Six Minutes of Terror, The Untold Story of the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts

“Heads turned as a young man wearing sleek black pants and a crisp black coat walked down the corridors of the Mumbai City Civil and Sessions Court. Twenty-nine-year-old Shahid Azmi’smother, Rehana Azmi, would lovingly call him Fardeen Khan, after the Bollywood actor known for his boyish looks and inimitable style. Shahid was a rookie, but no one was surprised when he decided to defend Faisal Shaikh, Muzzammil Shaikh, Naved Khan and Zameer Khan in the 7/11 blasts case. Softspoken, but wildly passionate about his work, Shahid was a lethal combination. After all, he had been to hell and back.

Disillusioned after the 1992 riots, Shahid joined the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front ( JKLF), a militant organization based in the Valley. In only a few months, the fifteen-year-old returned to his mother and three brothers, to their home in Govandi, one of the largest Muslim pockets in Mumbai. Shahid often admitted that he ‘couldn’t be a radical’. But his past followed him to Mumbai. The police detained him and charged him with several sections under the stringent Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act in 1994.

Just like under the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act, a confession under TADA could be used against him. Incorrect entries in the police files showed that the teenager had been apprehended from a Delhi market three days after he was actually detained in Mumbai. Shahid was accused of conspiring to murder Jammu and Kashmir political leader Dr Farooq Abdullah and was imprisoned for five years. In his time at Tihar jail, a maximum security prison in Delhi, Shahid continued his college education from Indira Gandhi National Open University, a distance learning university that has long been a haven for many prisoners hoping to reintegrate into mainstream society after they are released from the prison. Although Shahid had been convicted by the special TADA court, his sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court a year later as the police had no evidence but a ‘confession’ against him.

Shahid’s tryst with the law did not end there. After his release, he simultaneously completed a course in journalism and a degree in law from Kishinchand Chellaram College in Mumbai. At university, Shahid spoke with a slight stammer, talking only when spoken to. As a lawyer, he saw every client as a victim of a communalized police force. He paid the police back for what he had gone through; he broke down every case to the minutest of details, astonishing everyone with his grasp of the art of crossexamination.

As Shahid’s reputation in the courts grew, his family moved from Govandi to a more respectable address at Taximen’s colony in Kurla, near his new office. Shahid’s success was becoming apparent. He worked on cases until late in the night, and helped free more and more people who had been held under the now repealed Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA).

By 2006, Shahid had more cases than he could handle. His practice had been a massive setback for the Mumbai Police, who often tried brushing the errors in their investigation under the carpet, aided by incompetent lawyers representing the accused, especially in terror-related cases.https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/mumbai/crime/shahid-azmis-murder-they-didnt-just-kill-my-son-but-also-humanity/articleshow/62857742.cms